Disney, Aon and the light at the end of the tunnel
I started my vacation a bit disappointed. Basically with all the things going on lately a lot of people have dutifully told me to take it easy, which left me something cynical, because after due analysis the former only holds true when "taking it easy" doesn't come at the cost of them. Basically, I can take it easy all I want, as long as they don't pay for it. This episode was prompted mostly by my father, who always says that I should take it easy but also wanted his wireless internet to work last week, something that was a bit mutually exclusive with my trip to France *sigh*. Yes, I should plan better and say “no” more to ensure that what I do gets done right, but I sometimes feel a bit double when things just don’t get done; I have trouble letting go. Definitively one of my worse character traits…
But I digress. Tuesday Lies and myself got into my car with the luggage and drove to Paris. Lies took the first leg, driving about a third of the journey in the first leg while I took the rest after a brief stop. Via Breda, Antwerpen and Lille we got on the toll road to C. de Gaulle, where we got into a secondary road and arrived @ Disney close to 4. Incheck was relaxed, and we spent the afternoon unpacking and making the room our own, after which we saw the Buffalo Bill Wild West Dinner Show thing, which Lies booked. After that we simply retired to our room and red a lot.
Then we had the Euro Disney Parc day; Lies and I did pretty much all the kewl coasters and rides, including Pirates, nnd while we were walking through Frontierland we ran into Migs and his girl, making some smalltalk. A small world after all indeed... After that we did tea with Disney Figures, chosen by Lies because it was her true bday and ate in a King Arthur style restaurant in the Disney Village which was architecturally confuzzled between English and German castles. We really took it easy, ate, talked, red, and went to bed fairly early after enjoyed a good hot bath.
The next day we planned to go into the movie park, newly built, and enjoyed that too… except for Crush Coaster, which was the only ride not to have a fastpass system and therefore had around an hour’s waiting time… with the rest of the rides averaging 5 to 10 minutes we decided to skip it. We again enjoyed a leisurely dinner at the end of it all and red a bit in the lounge with the fireplace that the hotel had.
On our last day we did both parks, doing the highlights of them both, and then we started the drive back. We took turns again, and around 20:00 we were back in the Netherlands, rested and enjoying our own town’s decent shoarma. W00t!
The weekend was all about the bday of Lies, and I surprised her Saturday morning with a Wii of her own. I had ordered it nearly two months ago, and it was in pretty quick; not only did I sleep on a Wii for over a month (litterally, under the bed is still the best hiding place ;-) ) but I lived in mortal terror of the day she would announce that she had bought one herself. Luckily I did manage to convince the store manager, whom I know, to let the guarantee start on that particular Saturday so we have the full benefit of it. Guests came and went, filling the house to capacity, though I started to feel worse that day real quick; a cold gripped me and deadened my responses and a lot of my fun in having so many friends around. Still, twas very good and very relaxed, with in the end several spelleiders from several events through the country discussing the merits of flaws of certain ways of plotting... heh.
Still, one present deserves special mention, since it was a set of 4 books, two for Lies and two for me, brought over from the US by 5 friends; all of them White Wolf, all of them autographed... Wow. Honestly, my friends, you could not have made me any happier. It includes the autographs of Justin Achilli, the man behind "Vampire: the Masquarade", and Bill Bridges, whose honors include "Werewolf: the Apocalypse". Kid-in-a-candystory time... A thorough and humbled thank you.
Sunday various familymembers and parents dropped by, and I barely made it through the day... though the Monday I really needed to go to work cause I was the only one. Yep, out of a team of 4, I am the best of what's left. The perk? The biggest office on the grounds. The flaw? Well, I can escalete every call to myself on the second line, and myself on the third line... out of sheer frivolity I have named the call queue's after several of my characters so I can keep them apart *evil grin*. All in all, it is tough and draining me. I stayed sick-ish all week, cancelling and moving a few things, and happy that several other things were moved for me. Aon preps were done my a lot of people, and a few people could help me out, so I was fairly happy. Still, it was really, really tough.
Friday I was happy that I could get off a little sooner, and after calling Kaas awake just after the afternoon we went to my place, where Prima was packed and had the new EE cart hitched up. Yep, after a few events we were able to free up enough funds to buy a small cart for behind a standard car. It should fit most of the stock easily and since I have both most of the stock and a driveway to put it it shall be stored there. The drove was a bit longer then usual because with a cart you are only allowed to drive 80, but we were there in good time, unloaded and prepped as much as possible while we waited for the other group. Picked up my costume in Uden, picked up Micha, ate food with Joost and around 21:00 Kaas, Kelly and myself were ready to reinforce the Schnoodaert Family.
I don’t know if I will write a long Aon report, as a few things are somewhat sensitive in many respects *grin*. Suffice to say that I enjoyed myself due to a good group, good neighbors and wayyyy too many great in-jokes and tongue-in-cheek references, but that a few plot related happenings kind of reminded me of the world we left behind with Enneade, which brought back a few admittedly bitter memories. I have to agree with Glok that we might have outgrown certain types of play and interaction at that level. Still the sheer joy of playing with certain people again and talking to friends that I have not seen way too long really mentally recharged me. I was especially glad that Thursday evening Kaasje arranged a ride with me (originally I would have driven there alone) so I had some company; also a HUGE thanks to the whole Team Schnood for the clean-up: time-out was at three, and before 5 the big tent was down, packed, stocked and carried into the cart. After that we ate with a big group @ the Pannenkoekenbakker, something that I had missed sorely since it had been over a year ago since I played at the Inca terrain, and that was the perfect closing of a good weekend. All in all even with eating, driving the cart home and dropping Kaasje off in Delft I was home before 10.
My coming week will be quite nice: Crossfire WoW, EE and Lex related affairs, cuddling with girlfriend and a movie, followed by a fairly quiet weekend which I intend to keep so that I can properly prepare for Symbols the weekend after. My new boss has arrived today as well, so changes are afoot…
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sna) wrote,
cheerful
